Spies Are Everywhere – Apps to Keep Your Communication Private

Whether we like it or not, governments, law enforcement agencies and even malicious hackers are all seemingly happy to delve into our private lives, reading our messages and listening to our phone calls. Some people will argue that our civil liberties are being violated, while other will say snooping is necessary to protect us all. Either way, you can protect yourself from spies with a few apps that secure a padlock on your personal communications.

RedPhone & Signal

RedPhone, for Android users, and Signal, for iPhone users, are open source apps that secure standard phones calls. They work with each other, so an Android smartphone can securely call an iPhone and vice versa. Once you have opened the app once it will work harmoniously in the background, so you can continue to use the standard dialler on your phone. These two apps to keep your communication private should be merged under one name in the future, but for now get the free download for whichever operating system you use.

Telegram & WhatsApp

For text messaging move away from SMS altogether and start using a messaging app instead. Telegram and WhatsApp are both examples of secure messaging apps. WhatsApp has excellent security features and is already widely used, but Telegram is trumping the popular messaging app with some extra features. With Telegram you can choose whether to never have your chats saved or have them backed up in the cloud. They also offer a hacking bounty, so when it comes to any flaws in their security they are willing to put their money where their mouth is.

iMessage & FaceTime

For iPhone users, the Apple apps iMessage and FaceTime offer an awesome level of encryption and should be the first port of call when privacy is required. In fact, messages sent between iPhones using iMessage are encrypted to such a level that Apple cannot un-encrypt the message, even if they really wanted to.

Any of the apps above will help to keep your chats and messages private, so all that is left for you to decide is which ones you’ll use to communicate securely.